Today we celebrate our Mother Earth when spring is here and all the earth seems to be coming alive again…but as I look out my bedroom window, what do I see? Snow? Yes snow! Mother Nature is a bit of a trickster so we need to offer what I learned a half century ago as one of 100 Maxims of the Sisters of St. Joseph to put a positive spin on the day. It was the shortest one—the easiest to remember—and one of the most important: “Always interpret everything in the most favorable sense.” So, how to do that on this chilly day? Well, here’s a thought from long ago: “Snow is the poor man’s fertilizer.”
It works for me. Let us truly celebrate today all the beauty of the earth and all the gifts we receive from the natural world. Happy Earth Day!
Today is the feast of St. Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Native American saint, whom we New Yorkers claim for our own. Kateri was born in 1656 in what is now Auriesville, New York and died only 24 years later. The daughter of a Mohawk chief and an Algonquin mother, she became an orphan at age four when a smallpox epidemic claimed both her parents and her brother. Her short life was one of generosity and holiness, influenced by Jesuit missionaries and her own deep faith.
Today we celebrate the outpouring of the power that we call the Holy Spirit. Every inspiration that leads us deeper into the transformation of our hearts in love is understood as an impulse of this face of God. This Spirit is as elemental as our breath, unseen but known in myriad ways great and small – universal and individual. It is as simple as the intake of my breath at the beauty of the burgeoning flowers in spring or as miraculous as the moment a young woman first holds her newborn child. The Spirit brings many gifts, taught in Christianity (traditionally and then in modern parlance) as wisdom, understanding, knowledge, counsel (right judgment), fortitude (courage), piety (reverence) and fear of the Lord (Wonder and awe in God’s presence).
Once again the meteorologists seem to have been correct in their predictions. No wonder all the announcements of school closings were made last evening instead of waiting to see what would really happen. It had just started raining when those decisions were made around the supper hour and was still raining when I went to bed sometime later. Now, with the dawn, we have that combination of heavy snow covering what can only be a frozen base on our roads and the eerie quiet that means no traffic thus far this morning. I pray for all the “necessary staff” folks who are on their way to work because the snow is still coming at what appears to be a faster rate than any plow can match.
I don’t ever recall the Church celebrating a feast in honor of St. Paul’s companions Timothy and Titus even though they have been known to me as recipients of Paul’s letters. Today I hear them accorded the title of “Saint” which clearly they deserve because of their zeal in spreading the gospel for which they eventually lost their lives. A few things stand out for me after reading commentary and thinking about Paul’s letters to each of them.
“What gift will you bring to the Christ Child?” we were always asked in Catholic school when we were young. Our answers were all about ways in which we could be “good boys and girls” – behaviors that would make the Christ Child smile and our parents happy. There was certainly a devotional value to that practice, a teachable moment that gave us a sweet and kind image of God “in flesh” to whom we could easily relate. Of course there was still the hope that we might get the gifts for which we were so longing, usually in those days rather simple and less expensive gifts than what is “expected” in today’s society.
